


The Cost of Healing

by LadyAnneNeville



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Angst, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Episode: s03e11 Words and Deeds, Exhaustion, Gen, Hurt Robert Chase, Hurt/Comfort, magical healing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:06:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28754853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAnneNeville/pseuds/LadyAnneNeville
Summary: Inspired by a few other fics I've read, what if Robert Chase had the innate power to heal with his hands.This explores that idea a little, looking at if and when Chase might decide to heal House and House's leg and whether or not House would be able to accept that healing.
Relationships: Robert Chase & Greg House
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	The Cost of Healing

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [In A Land of Healing Miracles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17720090) by [forgetmenotjimmy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetmenotjimmy/pseuds/forgetmenotjimmy). 



The first time Chase caught a wave of pain from House it was an accident. He was careful, when around patients, when touching them, to keep his shields up and focused so he could be flexible when required. It was cheating, he supposed, as a diagnostician, to be able to understand what was wrong with a patient from nothing more than a touch.

Well nothing more was an exaggeration. It took a lot out of him, left him exhausted and nauseous, especially with patients as sick as House’s patients usually were. And he had to find a quiet moment to put his skin on his patient’s skin for long enough to feel through their body and work out where the pain was coming from and what was wrong. It didn’t always let him know the disease, but it normally got him incredibly close.

Then he had to work out a way to present his theory that didn’t reveal he had supernatural knowledge of what was wrong.

Occasionally. Very occasionally. He would Heal. 

He had learned from long experience never to heal completely, he didn’t want to draw undue attention. And usually he waited until the patient was on the correct treatment for their condition so if they weren’t responding sufficiently, he could just give them a little boost.

He was three months in, the first time he felt House’s pain. It had been a bad pain day and it was obvious, by now, when House had bad pain days.

The floor was slightly wet and House’s cane slipped, the older man went flying and Chase caught him.

It was towards the end of the day and no where near any patients so his shields weren’t up. A flash of emotion from a healthy colleague was easily processed. Extreme pain, and the irritation and depression that accompanied it was not. 

The edge of his thumb brushed House’s neck as he caught the older man and helped heave him back onto his feet.

House, predictably, went off on a vicious rant at Chase for daring to have the audacity to help him. It was helpful in a way, the combination of being twenty-five and House’s youngest associate and being yelled at, publicly by his boss went a long way towards explaining his pallor.

The agony was sudden and all consuming. Once House had stormed off he almost ran into the nearest men’s bathroom and threw up, for about ten minutes. He stood up, washed his face, brushed his teeth in the locker room downstairs and checked on the patient, careful not to touch them. The encounter with House had left him too exhausted to maintain his shields adequately. He could avoid picking up ambient emotion but anything stronger would shatter him.

He returned to the diagnostics office with an update on how the patient was doing, hoping it wasn’t obvious how ill he had been.

House had locked himself in the inner office with the lights dimmed. Chase passed on the patient update to the two other fellows, both of whom were planning their departure, and then settled down with the patient file and a textbook, to disguise his unfitness to work right now.

It was an emotional process. To sort through House’s pain. It helped him read the man better and learn which days challenging him too much might be a mistake. 

The hardest part was once he had made contact with a person like that, it made him more receptive and aware of their emotional state, even without physical touch.

There was a reason he used his gift sparingly, and typically on patients that he would never see again. He hadn’t had to deal with this kind of onslaught since his mother, who he had healed repeatedly for years, until he came home to find her dead by suicide. He couldn’t help someone who didn’t want to be helped, and with House he couldn’t tell.

He knew House didn’t want to be in pain anymore, but it was becoming more and more clear that his addiction to narcotics was a separate issue from the pain in his leg, and getting rid of House’s pain was only part of the problem.

He built his shields up and up, started using his gift less and less until he was completely disconnected from the emotions of those around him. He tried to be more gentle around children but it took Foreman calling him on his lack of empathy after the case with the obese ten year old for it to sink in that he had gone too far.

He worked on thinning his shields just enough to be in tune with other people’s emotions again.

He practised on women he slept around with. A one night stand with no strings was a pretty secure way to ensure no ongoing relationship and he was able to weed out women who might feel ashamed or guilty or overly attached afterwards by letting himself sense their emotions in the setting of a crowded bar. It was a good way to ensure he only slept with those who were completely up for it, not that he’d ever had much of an issue on that front.

He hadn’t reached out to heal anyone again though, not since he had only just started working for House, although he would let himself acquire more diagnostic information, he would no longer give them a push on the way to healing.

Then a man walked into the office and shot House twice.

The second the man walked out Chase dashed to House’s prone body and didn’t hesitate. He observed the exit wound and placed pressure on both to slow the bleeding. He didn’t stop for a moment, taking down his shields and healing the organs the bullets had made contact with as best he could. Surgery would still be risky but at least his organs wouldn’t fail before they had a chance to fix them. The biggest issue would be the blood loss. 

Then came the ketamine, his fledgling relationship with Cameron, if it could be called a relationship and Tritter.

The aftermath of the ketamine was the proof he needed. If House’s leg healed then he would successfully stay off vicodin and it wouldn’t have a negative impact on his abilities as a doctor.

Chase wasn’t sure what to do with that information. House would never believe him if he told his boss he could magically heal with his hands, and the only side effects were feeling their emotions and exhaustion. There was no way his boss would allow him to help.

Tritter came, and Cuddy withheld vicodin, and his job became harder. House was in pain and irrational, and eventually he punched him.

Then vicodin was withheld entirely, and Cuddy sent both Foreman and Cameron to speak with House and Chase tried not to be offended at the omission. He didn’t succeed.

Thirty six hours after House had been sent home with no vicodin and no case Chase received a call from Wilson. House had taken an overdose, he had vomited, he would probably be fine but Wilson was too angry to stay.

When Wilson said angry Chase could read into the subtext. Wilson felt guilty, that was why he wasn’t staying. Chase rushed over anyway. Wilson let him in, and left, leaving him to make sure House wouldn’t choke on his own vomit.

It was an opportunity. And House had been in agony. But it would be noticed if he did anything major. At that moment Chase didn’t care.

Chase looked at the pitiful figure of his boss, stoned out of his mind and made a decision he was eighty percent sure he would regret.

House probably wouldn’t remember. Chase decided, and the older man who had such ardent faith in science or the rational most likely would not jump to the conclusion that Chase had magical powers. Mind made up, because now was probably the best opportunity he would have for a long time he sat down on the floor next to his boss and unbuttoned House’s trousers.

In as professional and detached a matter as possible, he lowered House’s trousers just enough to expose the ugle crater of missing muscle. Pushing aside all of his anxieties and fears about what he was doing he placed both of his bare hands on the overheated flesh of House’s thigh.

He pushed back against the instinct to whip his shields back up to full and let House’s pain and emotions wash over him. This was going to take a lot out of him, he probably wouldn’t be able to drive home afterwards.

There was the dizzying bliss of the high of course, and guilt… anger… so much anger… and yet still the present unavoidable agony from the injury, muted from the oxy the man had taken but unmistakably there, and the nauseous overpowering need to feed the addiction, the vicodin.

He had to prioritise. The amount of oxycodone in House’s system was dangerous and could do serious damage to his organs but while House was high as a kite Chase was protected from his actions being remembered. The oxy could wait. Worst case scenario Chase would have to call an ambulance, or Wilson.

Instead Chase focused his energy on the damaged thigh. He would need to be careful. He couldn’t regenerate too much of the muscle. If he made the crater shrink slightly and broke down the scar tissue, it would help. He closed his eyes and let himself immerse completely in the injury. Soothing damaged muscle and restoring scar tissue to healthy flesh. When he was finished, the muscle was essentially whole, but unusually shaped. The unusual shape would cause twinges and some pain, but 90% of the pain that was due to the leg would vanish. 

Chase was exhausted but kept going, diving then into House’s central nervous system and the pain centre of his brain, quieting the neurons and ensuring that psychosomatic pain from the injury, linked to House’s emotional state, would abate, at least for a while.

The problem with addicts, is it never took long to break down the healing Chase might do in their brains, but at least it would be a respite for a few weeks or months, depending on how well House took to the healing.

Next he tackled the physical addiction to vicodin. Filtering the opioid out of House’s system until there was no trace and no withdrawal. It would do nothing at all for the mental side of the addiction, but Chase hoped that without as much pain House would have an easier time resisting.

He could feel his strength slipping away, but was very aware that all this would be for nothing if House died of an oxycodone overdose and he was too out of it to help. If that was the case it would probably cost him his medical license for neglect. 

He turned his attention to House’s organs, focusing first on the liver to repair it as much as possible, then giving little boosts to his damaged kidneys, while filtering just enough of the oxycodone out of House’s system to get the man out of danger.

House’s high from the drugs and potent emotions were making Chase dizzy and lightheaded, but also pulling him in. If he didn’t stop now it would use up all of Chase’s reserves and he could end up in a coma or worse. He pulled in a deep, shaky breath and yanked his hands away from House’s thigh.

Chase felt like a puppet whose strings had been cut as he rocked back on his knees. He looked regretfully at House’s bandaged arm. His hands were shaking hard, but he should move away at least before he passed out. 

House was slim for his height, but he felt about a hundred times heavier than he should as Chase heaved the older man onto his side and into the recovery position.

Chase stood up and stumbled back as spots danced in his vision and another wave of dizziness hit him. It had been over a decade since he had healed any one person as much as he had done for House and back then he didn’t have the medical knowledge to do it well. He had overshot, but it was hard to regret it when he knew that House’s quality of life could be greatly improved from what he had done.

He staggered over to the other side of the room, intending to collapse on House’s sofa for a few hours at least. It was still dark outside but that didn’t mean anything in terms of what time it was this close to Christmas in New Jersey.

He didn’t make it to the sofa, tripping over something he hadn’t noticed and the dizziness being enough to bring him all the way to the floor. He felt a spark of intense pain in his temple as it made contact with the coffee table on the way down, just alert enough to realise what potentially bad news that was as he slipped into unconsciousness.

House blinked awake in the bright light of the morning that meant he had slept long past the time he would have had to get up for work. His head and stomach ached and there was an acrid smell in the air. He blearily realised that he was lying in the recovery position.

Wilson, he thought. Wilson had probably come over and made sure the oxy didn’t kill him. As he came more completely into wakefulness he realised how strange he felt. He was clear headed, completely, and well rested and most bizarrely of all, his leg barely ached. What had happened to him? He rolled onto his back and moved his leg experimentally. No pain. He reached down to feel the muscle. He could still feel the crater where the muscle was missing but it felt smaller maybe? It was hard to tell. He sat up a little to look. 

He was still wearing his boxers but his trousers were pulled down almost to his knees. That was strange. He could understand pulling off his trousers in a drugged out haze and them maybe remaining attached to an ankle but this arrangement was new.

House pushed himself into a standing position and stretched, redressing himself in his trousers. He wasn’t sure why he felt so good but he wasn’t about to waste it. He looked around the room and froze.

There was blood on the hard corner of his coffee table, and lying next to the coffee table, face down, head resting in a blood stain on the carpet, was his youngest fellow, Robert Chase.

House had no idea how or why Chase was in his apartment, but he spared the mystery no thought as he rushed over, calling Chase’s name.

He turned the young man over to see a gash on his forehead from where he must have hit the coffee table, it was still bleeding sluggishly but the edges of the bloodstain were ice cold. Chase must have been lying there for hours. 

House tried to rouse him. Calling Chase’s name, tapping his face and giving him a sternum rub. Nothing worked. He opened Chase’s eyelids to look at his pupils. Coma. House realised. At some point between House taking the oxycodone and waking up this morning, Chase had hit his head on his coffee table and fallen into a coma. 

Breathing was strong and consistent but pulse was a little weak and thready, possibly due to the blood loss. House searched for his mobile phone but couldn’t see it, eventually stumbling over to his landline to call 911 and summon an ambulance. The bill would only partly be covered by the young man’s health insurance but he needed scans and care urgently and House didn’t think he could carry Chase’s dead weight to his car and get him to the hospital.

Once the ambulance was on its way, House snapped that he was a doctor at the 911 operator and hung up. Immediately dialling Wilson’s number.

“What the hell happened last night.” House demanded.

“You’re asking me what happened? That’s rich.” Wilson stated. “I came over to yours to discover you’d overdosed on oxycodone you’d stolen from one of my deceased patients. You’re damn lucky I called you a babysitter rather than leaving you there to choke on your own vomit.” Wilson sounded pissed.

“You called Chase? Had him come over?” House asked, urgently.

“I did. Wait a minute. How come Chase didn’t tell you what happened last night?” Wilson asked. 

“Because he’s lying on my floor with a head wound having slipped into a coma.” House explained, voice as cold as ice. “It looks like he hit his head on the corner of my coffee table. The wound hasn’t stopped bleeding but it must have happened hours ago if he’s in a coma.”

“Oh my God.” 

“An ambulance is on it’s way. I’ll get them to bring us to Princeton Plainsboro. Can you alert Cuddy and my team that we will be at the ER soon. I want to get him into scans as soon as possible. My best guess for what has happened is he has a brain bleed induced by trauma which might mean he needed to be in surgery hours ago.”

“I’ll tell them, get your team to meet the ambulance and Cuddy to smooth it over with the ER staff.” Wilson reassured. “House.” He paused. “Are you okay?”

House initially didn’t say a word, then he heard the tell tale sirens of the ambulance.

“Ambulance is here, gotta go. See you in ten minutes.” House said as he hung up the phone.

**Author's Note:**

> This will be either a two or three chapter story with subsequent chapters exploring if Chase recovers and what the effect will be on House, and how House will cope with the mystery of his healing leg. I adored 'In a land of healing miracles' by forgetmenotjimmy and I wanted to write my own story on the same theme.
> 
> Please please comment if you liked this. Comments make such a huge difference to me and is such fantastic encouragement to keep writing. As of yet I haven't decided if there will be any pairings so if that's something you would like to see do let me know.


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